Company asks on job application: Do you have any health conditions which could affect your ability to perform this job?

Rhywden

No, no, no. Your scenario was: "The temp worker is way better than the person on maternity leave and thus should deserve to replace her!"

You're once again trying to

Because everything else is just a silly: "Temp work is evil! Only permanent job offers!" Plus, if you're sooo worried about the poor temp workers - then I'm a bit astounded that you're willing to keep those but are perfectly fine with kicking out someone with a newborn who arguably needs the money a bit more.

blek

I don't see how that's incompatible with what I just said. People don't want the temp job, because they know that no matter how good and hardworking they are, they'll be looking for another job again in a year or less - unless they're incredibly lucky and the company decides to keep both them and the original woman, but I don't think that happens too often.

Rhywden

And your alternative is to kick the woman out of her job just when she needs the money most.

Good idea!

Yamikuronue

@blek said:

And trust me, almost nobody wants that kind of contract and the uncertainty it brings.

You don't have people who contract by choice? Really? My local contracting pool is full of people who like the idea of changing companies every so often to avoid getting mired down in politics and bullshit, plus they tend to get paid more per hour.

blek

My idea is to let adults sort their problems among themselves, instead using law to shift the consequences of one person's life choices onto another who had nothing to do with it. (And on the employer in question, too - having to pay two people for one job hurts especially small businesses while corporations don't care.)

Rhywden

@blek said:

My idea is to let adults sort their problems among themselves, instead using law to shift the consequences of one person's life choices onto another who had nothing to do with it. (And on the employer in question, too - having to pay two people for one job hurts especially small businesses while corporations don't care.)

Oh, great, this "The free market fixeth all" bullshit. Dude, there's a reason why those laws came into passing.

And it was not: "Oh, it worked sooo great before!"

Yamikuronue

This isn't a problem between two adults, though. It's a problem between a giant corporation with millions of dollars and lawyers on call, and a single person who just had a baby. There's no contest who'd win that fight if it came down to it.

Rhywden

I think some people really want to drive the birth rates to rock-bottom.

blek

Is it really? Corporations generally have a better ability to provide extra benefits than small businesses do. I mean, in the US before Obamacare, it was pretty common for those evil corporations to provide insurance, while small businesses often couldn't afford that - isn't that right?

So what exactly stops the same corporation from providing another benefit in the form of paid maternity leave and a guaranteed job when you come back? It would make negligible impact on their bottom line, and it would attract people and make for good PR. It worked for medical insurance, there's no reason for it to not work in this case.

Rhywden

Following your logic, you should also be allowed to fire people if they become ill.

I can just see the card delivered to the hospital:

"Sorry Bill for the car crash you were not responsible for and which broke your leg and arm. We at WTFCorp wish you a speedy recovery in your now ample spare time!"

Yamikuronue

@blek said:

So what exactly stops the same corporation from providing another benefit in the form of paid maternity leave and a guaranteed job when you come back?

Dunno. None of them do. They're all fighting to see who can get away with paying their workers the absolute least, and offering the least amount of benefits. It's incredibly rare to see anyone offer more than the legal minimums, and many large corporations will try to pressure you into not accepting those legal minimums or outright lie to get around them (see, firing you just after you get pregnant for "performance reasons").

And you want to take even that little away?

Gąska

@Rhywden said:

Yes. Of course, any and all women first have to drop out of their jobs before they're allowed to become pregnant just so they don't "abuse" their employers.

Well, if they only took the job to go on maternity leave immediately after...

I don't know any numbers, but I know this actually happens and it happens quite a lot, because otherwise the employers wouldn't be so crazy about hiring women.

@Rhywden said:

Do you hire permanent staff to cover for a pregnant worker? If so, dumbass.

Do you let go of a good employee? If so, dumbass.

@Rhywden said:

Over here, we have special contracts explicitly for covering such cases.

Same here. But it doesn't mean the contract can't be renewed.

blek

@Rhywden said:

And it was not: "Oh, it worked sooo great before!"

If you think laws are made to improve objectively bad situations, then I don't think I have much else to say to you, I'm sorry.

@Rhywden said:

I think some people really want to drive the birth rates to rock-bottom.

What, because people don't procreate if someone else doesn't pay for it? How did we not go extinct before reaching roughly mid-20th century where these protection laws started to appear, then?

@Rhywden said:

Following your logic, you should also be allowed to fire people if they become ill.

Well, yes, why not? I mean, I'm not going to keep paying money to a company that stops providing me the service I was paying them for. If my ISP cuts off my internet, I won't keep paying them.

Yamikuronue

Some numbers, before someone asks: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-06/wall-street-techdom-and-the-hard-truth-about-parental-leave

Rhywden

Okay, I'm done arguing with your special kind of scumbaggery.

I seriously hope you're on receiving end of your arguments one day.

Yamikuronue

@blek said:

Well, yes, why not?

Employees are not interchangeable. You spend a lot of money training a new employee; over the course of their employment, you invest more than you spend paying them for leave. It's the cost of not having to train a new permanent hire.

boomzilla

@blek said:

I mean, in the US before Obamacare, it was pretty common for those evil corporations to provide insurance, while small businesses often couldn't afford that - isn't that right?

And probably even more common now that we have Obamacare.

blek

Maybe your situation is different, but I get paid a pretty decent wage and I get more benefits than I know what to do with. Actually I even think the evil corporation I work for does provide some sort of maternity leave above what's required by law, but I never had to use that so I'm honestly not sure.

Yes, of course companies try to make as much money as they can - that's why they exist. The only reason. Do you pay more than you have to when buying things? Do you ever go "this computer seems way too cheap to me, have an extra 100 dollars"?

And there's no "little" to take away. Europeans and Americans are living like pigs, we're the richest people in the world.

@Yamikuronue said:

Employees are not interchangeable. You spend a lot of money training a new employee; over the course of their employment, you invest more than you spend paying them for leave. It's the cost of not having to train a new permanent hire.

I agree, but that's a different topic. We're talking about whether a company should be able to fire someone, and I believe the answer is a resounding yes. You're talking about whether it's a good idea; I agree that in a lot of cases it isn't - and I think it supports my point, because even if it was legally possible, it wouldn't happen that often. Still, I think the company should be able to shoot itself in the foot.

Yamikuronue

@blek said:

I think the company should be able to shoot itself in the foot.

I think we shouldn't remove limits on how little a worker can receive until there's evidence the corporations won't immediately reduce their pay/benefits to below what the limit was.

After all, it took legal action to free the slaves, too. Sometimes what's best for an individual person or company is well at odds with what's best for society, and that's what government is for. It's better for birth rates if women have a job to come back to when they get pregnant. Corporations don't care about babies, why should they?

blek

I'll be honest, I have no idea how your system works. Was I talking out of my ass? If so then my bad.

Gąska

@Rhywden said:

Following your logic, you should also be allowed to fire people if they become ill.

If we are to follow any logic at all, you should be allowed to fire any people, for anything, or even nothing at all - with a proper notice period, of course. Job contract should be completely voluntary, for both sides.

blek

There is plenty evidence that corporations won't immediately reduce their pay/benefits. If they did that, then currently everyone would be working for minimum wage. But most people don't, do they?

blek

I don't suppose you see the irony in calling me a scumbag in one sentence, and then immediately wishing I get fucked in the next, do you?

Yamikuronue

You make a good argument for removing minimum wage, but when barely 20% of companies offer paid maternity leave, I'm pretty sure removing the mandatory unpaid leave would result in vast numbers of companies dropping it. If we hit a critical mass and now 96% of workers have paid parental leave (equivalent to the numbers of people who make more than minimum wage), then yeah, the law could be removed safely. As it is, only companies who are struggling to retain highly trained talent (like Netflix) are offering it.

boomzilla

@blek said:

I'll be honest, I have no idea how your system works. Was I talking out of my ass? If so then my bad.

No, I think what you said was probably a popular interpretation. It's just that the law had some fairly predictable (if you knew what it said, which we didn't even after it was passed, because it's mostly regulations created based on authority created by the statute, but I digress) consequences.

Like if you require companies with $x full time employees have to buy insurance for the employees, business near the cusp will do their darndest to make sure employees qualify as part timers.

There was also an assumption that something with "Affordable Care" in the name would make care more affordable. This is a reasonable misunderstanding by people who have never observed the US Federal Government at work.

boomzilla

@Yamikuronue said:

As it is, only companies who are struggling to retain highly trained talent (like Netflix) are offering it.

Yes, it's a competitive advantage for those [businesses] who can afford it. If you make it more expensive to hire people then expect fewer people to be hired. Or the costs will be taken out elsewhere. In particular, forcing something like long paid leave will really hurt small operations, as government regulations tend to do.

I have absolutely no problem with a business deciding they want to provide such a benefit. But a mandate from the government I will oppose, no matter how many naughty things @Rhwyden calls me.

blek

Hm, you have a point, reaching a "critical mass" would be definitely safer. Still, I believe that should be changed culturally, by employees demanding maternity leave (paid or unpaid) and pressuring employers to provide it - not by law. That never ends well for most people.

I mean, I guess I could bring up the argument that maybe companies don't offer anything above the bare minimum because the protections in law create a status quo, and if they were removed, then the status quo would disappear and the new standard could become paid leave... but I don't have much other than a gut feeling to back it up.

boomzilla

@boomzilla said:

But a mandate from the government I will oppose

Oh...I'll add that the main reason we have the silly employer based health plan system today is the wage controls imposed by FDR. Health insurance was a way to compete for employees without running afoul of those.

Yamikuronue

@blek said:

I believe that should be changed culturally

I agree. I'm saying don't remove the minimums that are in place in the meantime.

aapis

@PJH said:

gaol

I'll take "what the fuck is that" for $2000, Alex.

I'm pretty sure it means "jail", but being England it may be slang for Australia or something.

RaceProUK

@aapis said:

I'm pretty sure it means "jail"

Yep; gaol is the archaic spelling.

@aapis said:

but being England it may be slang for Australia or something.

We did ship a lot of crims over there, we did!

FrostCat

@blakeyrat said:

"Give us a laundry list of all your medical conditions" is not.

Only someone from California would think that "Do you have any health issues that might affect your ability to do the job you're applying for?" is the same as "Give us a laundry list of all your medical conditions."

Applying to be a UPS truck driver? Inability to lift 70 pounds is a relevant issue. Applying to be a QA person? Same inability's not relevant.

FrostCat

@Rhywden said:

Over here, we have special contracts explicitly for covering such cases.

I'd wondered about that. Shockingly enough, when you read about someone being illegally fired for getting pregnant or whatever, you don't see mention of that.

anotherusername

@PleegWat said:

@powerlord said:
Is it? They're not asking if you have any health issues, they're asking if you have any health issues that might affect your ability to do the job you're applying for.

I think you need a 'significantly' in there. There are many minor health issues that might make it slightly harder for you to fill a job than for a hypothetical perfectly healthy person.

In the USA I'd imagine you'd probably also want to put in something about reasonable accommodations. As in, employers are required by law to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled people, and if a disabled person is able to perform that job adequately well with reasonable accommodations, then the employer isn't allowed to discriminate against them in the hiring process.

But if a job requires, say, color vision, and there's simply no way a colorblind person could safely be accommodated, then you can discriminate and not hire the colorblind person. That's legal.

That said, the question is still dangerous because it opens the door to the candidate telling you something that would be illegal for you to consider in the hiring process. Some candidates will do that deliberately so if they're not hired they can claim you discriminated illegally and sue you.

blakeyrat

@FrostCat said:

Applying to be a UPS truck driver? Inability to lift 70 pounds is a relevant issue. Applying to be a QA person? Same inability's not relevant.

That's true, but the job listing needs to be specific about what physical abilities are required. That's all I was saying.

You can't just say "give us any possible problems that may prevent you from doing this job" without listing what capabilities the job requires. It's not good enough to let your applicants "just guess".

FrostCat

@boomzilla said:

if you knew what it said, which we didn't even after it was passed

Even worse, as an a side, did you ever read any of the actual text? I did, a little, and, unless it was changed in the final version, a lot of it was "section 123.4 (I) 2 (b) of 18 CFR 7321.5, will have the word "and" replaced by "or"." It's almost like it was explicitly designed to be hard to figure out what it did.